On Thu, 9 Jul 2009 21:15:45 -0500, 
Peter da Silva <peter@[...].com>  wrote:

>  On 2009-07-09, at 17:03, Lars Hellstr�m wrote:
> > wouldn't you need an -index 0 to specify that you're
> > searching the first element of each group?
>  I'm not sure what the point to a strided search that didn't only  
>  search one index (default 0) of each group. If it's searching the  
>  whole group it's equivalent to a non-strided search followed by a  
>  modulus operation. Perhaps that should have been explicit, it never  
>  occurred to me to do so (too close to the trees, I guess). :)

Normally, when searching a list of sub-lists, each sub-list is matched
against as a string.  Would it not make more sense to act as though the
list had been re-packaged into sub-lists of -stride length?

The modulo effect is trivial, this effect requires significant work.
Perhaps too much to implement, if it requires special case handling (in
which case an implied "-index 0" might be better?).

But if it can be done sanely, I'd think it was by far the more obvious
choice.  Even when -index is used, if the selected item itself is a
sub-list, it is again matched as a string.


-- 
Fredderic

Debian/unstable (LC#384816) on i686 2.6.29-2-686 2009 (up 6 days, 21:02)